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Monthly Archives: November 2012

Anzac biscuits were originally made to send to Army Corps from Australia and New Zealand, serving in Gallipoli. Although ‘Anzac day‘ is traditionally celebrated in Australia and New Zealand, on the 25th of April, I decided to bake these delcious biscuits for Remembrance Sunday, November 11th. I also added some raisons to my batch.

Ingredients

85g porridge oats

85g desiccated coconut

100g plain flour

100g caster sugar

100g butter

1 tbsp golden syrup

1tsp baking powder

60g raisons or sultanas (optional)

Method

Heat oven to 180C.

Measure out the oats, coconut, flour, baking powder and sugar in a bowl.

Melt the butter in a small pan and stir in the golden syrup.

Once the butter and golden syrup has melted, pour this into your bowl of dry ingredients. Add raisons if you are using them. Mix the biscuit dough well.

Take small handfuls of the mixture and make a little patty in your hand, put these on greaseproof paper and bake for about 10 minutes.

It really annoys me when people say things like, ‘I really can’t cook’. Anyone can cook, they just have to try. There are plenty of tasty meals and treats that require minimum effort for maximum taste, Banoffee pie is one of these.

To start with, you need a biscuit base. You can use digestives, but I prefer the humble ginger nut biscuit as it adds a little more bite. Put a packet of the biscuits into a food bag and beat them to death, they will soon resemble bread crumbs. Melt around 100g butter, mix this in with the breadcrumb biscuits and press into the bottom of your dish. Chill in the fridge for 20 minutes.

Now, you need the caramel filling. If you are in a hurry, use Carnation Caramel, all ready for you to go. Alternatively, boil a can of condensed milk in water for around an hour, it will become delicious caramel! Spread the caramel onto your biscuit base, then add sliced bananas. Ripe bananas are best.

Now, whip your double cream. I like to add a teaspoon of vanilla essence and around 25g icing sugar. Spread the cream onto your caramel/banana base. I like to add some cadbury flake on top of the cream for extra flavour and decoration.

You can make one big banoffee pie, or individual smaller ones. It is a simple, but tasty desert, that is sure to satisfy everyone that eats it.

Las Vegas is apparently the city that never sleeps and home to some of the most extravagant and lavish [anything] on the planet. We however, were a little more reserved when jaunting around in Nevada last month and tried to absorb some of the finer things that the heart of the silver state had to offer.

Designer dining is everywhere you look in Las Vegas as most people come to the Sin City for a royal good time, and what can be more centric to this kind of experience than decent food served with a smile.

The pinacle of the dining experiences that we had was at the Eiffel Tower Restaurant No, not a throwback to European holidays, but in the Paris Las Vegas which is home to a half scale, 541-foot (165 m) tall replica of the Eiffel Tower.

The dining experience here is one of the best in Las Vegas if not only for the amazing views up and down Las Vegas Boulevard and the extravagant vistas of the Bellagio Fountains.

Once you have gotten over such amazing views, the food here is just tremendous. To start things off, there was an amuse-bouche of mushroom muse with truffle shavings and a cheese pastry to get things moving in the mouth.

Next up was the starters that were tailored for the season. I started with Autumn Greens: Roasted Beets, Walnuts, Bartlett Pear, Petite Frisee. This was a delicious light start to the meal and welcome relief from the hugely rich intake of the past few days.

Nina went with a more traditional start of Creamy French Onion Soup.

The mains were just as impressive. A friend recommended the steak in this restaurant, so I had to see what all the fuss was about and opted for the Open Faced Steak Sandwich: Blue Cheese, Horseradish, Crispy Shallots.

Needless to say that there was cause for fuss as the tender steak fell apart in the mouth with its sweet flavours and backup from the toasted bread beneath that served well to soak up anything lost by the meat.

Nina made her way through the Chopped Romaine: Chicken Two Ways, Caesar Dressing, Poppy Seed Tuile.

Thinking that the ‘salad’ option would be lighter, this was quite the helping. So much to say that I had my fair share and this mix of salad and chicken was pretty rich and thus very satisfying.

All in all, if you are in Las Vegas and fancy a refined meal with exceptional service, ambience and probably some of the best views any city can offer, you cant go too far wrong with the Eiffel Tower Restaurant.